1. Field of the Disclosed Embodiments
This disclosure relates to systems and methods for implementing advanced object collision avoidance for vehicles traveling on a constrained path, including rail vehicles traveling on tracks as a track intrusion detection system (TIDS).
2. Related Art
Despite significant railway and subway safety vigilance, an unfortunate continuing problem exists with people being injured and killed on railway and subway tracks. Many of these unfortunate occurrences arise when one passenger may inadvertently (and, in a small number of cases, purposefully) push another passenger onto the tracks. Railway and transit control and operating agencies continue to seek systems that provide additional track surveillance and early warnings of track obstructions with an objective of stopping trains in an event of passengers jumping, falling, or being pushed onto the tracks in front of oncoming trains.
Albeit that these are severe problems and tend to grab local and national headlines, the railway and transit control and operating agencies, like many other industry agencies nationwide and worldwide, struggle with balancing limited resources spread across a broad spectrum of operating requirements. As such, reasonable accommodation to safety requires that these agencies dedicate resources to the difficulties associated with individuals ending up on a track bed in front of an oncoming train, at the expense of devoting those resources to other operational requirements. Resources, for example, must be dedicated to simply maintaining the trains, the tracks, and the supporting facilities, as well as to reasonable attempts to maintain a safe operating environment.